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Word of the Year - "Truthiness"
KingSkippus writes "Stephen Colbert calls it 'truth that comes from the gut, not books.' Merriam-Webster calls it their 2006 Word of the Year. The word, first introduced [Windows media] on 'The Word' segment of The Colbert Report, won by a five-to-one margin. In spite of Colbert's ironic dismissal of dictionaries and other reference books, will Colbert's coined word actually be added to those books? With media outlets like CNN and MSNBC covering it, the idea may very well have truthiness."
Ironic that the post here misuses the word...
In spite of Colbert's ironic dismissal of dictionaries and other reference books, will Colbert's coined word actually be added to those books?
He doesn't just dismiss them. He views them as a direct threat to the only *true* primary souce, one's own gut instinct.
Push Button, Receive Bacon
... and that's the word.
The word, first introduced [Windows media]...
Try:
The word, first introduced...
And here's a link, as if my statement's truthiness needed augmentation.
Despite my unending devotion to Mr. Colbert, I must point out that he did not invent the word truthiness. He, like Microsoft did with their use of the word Genuine, gave it a new meaning.
"Fo Sho" lost its appeal circa 2000 with the release of Snoop Dogg's The Last Meal but the term was not universally disposed as a term of affirmation until the release of Jay-Z's The Blueprint circa 2001 due to the popularity of the single Izzo(H.O.V.A) which borrowed heavily from Snoop Dogg's supposed "Crip Colloquialism". In actuality the proper terminology to express agreement with another party would be "Fo Shizzle" which is not "Crip Colloquialism" but a form of expression first invented by an often forgotten Funk band known as Gap Band
;-)
What are they teaching people in school these days?
I think the invisible hand of the market has its middle finger extended
--A wise old fart named SC0RN
You need to look up the definition. Or at least watch the FV that I linked to.
Colbert says:
The fact that the "wordinistas" over at Websters have made "Truthiness" their 2006 Word of the Year is about as ironic as it gets.
Even if you don't watch the FV that I linked to, my own submission says:
sigh I hate explaining basic things such as what irony is, but since you didn't get it, allow me to direct you to one of those noisome reference books, Webster's online dictionary. Please pay particular notice to definition 3a: "incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result."
It is possible (i.e. the "actual result of a sequence of events" is) that Colbert's word "truthiness" may eventually end up in one or more dictionaries. Colbert's satire (do I have to explain what that is, too?) dismisses books such as dictionaries precisely because they don't include words like "truthiness" (i.e. "the normal or expected result").
Feel free to point out exactly why you don't think that's ironic. Surely you don't think that conspicuous sarcasm is the only type of irony that exists?
If anyone who actually has a brain wants to mod the parent down and undo to the work of your unfortunate Slashdot peers who had mod points but no clue, it would probably be worthwhile. Meanwhile, I find your comment a little ironic as well. And in case you missed that, too, it's because you're using a definition of irony that must obviously be derived from "truthiness" (i.e. the actual result) instead of the real definition of the word (i.e. the expected result) in your comment. Are you starting to understand?
Fine. Read over the definition of 'truthiness' carefully, and suggest a single-word synonym. The only one I can think of is 'bellyfeel,' and because of its blatant associations with 1984, there was no way Colbert could have plausibly pretended to mean it.
"Collateral damage" wasn't coined because some American general was too lazy to look up a synonym for "demolished schoolhouse". You cite laziness as the primary motivator, when in fact the primary motivation was to obfuscate rather than to reveal. This sort of linguistic shenanigans isn't healthy, but neither is it an entirely American phenomenon.
"Infomercial" isn't just marketspeak for "well, okay, it's a commercial, but we want you to focus on the fact that we're giving you *information*" as you seem to suggest. In Americanese, it refers to a specific format of commercial, thirty minutes in length, used by many TV channels to fill crappy time slots with programming that they get paid for, rather than programming they have to pay for. Since it has a specific and unique meaning, it's a bad example.
I'm perfectly fine with "blog" and "podcasting". Thin-slicing sounds like a hyped word for "snap judgment". I'd never heard of captology, and I really can't make heads or tails of it. It seems to embundle a lot of semi-related ideas that all sound intriguing. "Folksonomy" probably has some close synonyms in anthropology, but I don't know how well the mainstream would digest them. I certainly can't think of a synonym that I could use and be understood by most people.
Sure, there is some element of hype to many of these new terms, but branding an old idea with a new term might also give you the chance to say something new about it. Take 'blog' for example. You can't call it an 'online diary' or 'web journal' because the 'diary' and 'journal' both imply a certain need for privacy, when you're actually publishing to the whole world. Even the 'log' portion of 'web log' implies something about the nature of the communication that is patently untrue. Anyhow, can you see the mainstream media sitting up and taking notice of "the online journalling community"? Using an old word starts people with the assumption that there is nothing fundamentally new going on, and I don't think that's the case with blogging.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go drive my horseless carriage somewhere.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!